of the San Agustin proved a windfall for the
Indians of Point Reyes, who found a novel use
for Cermeiio's dinnerware. Among bits of the
Ming porcelain, archeologists recovered afrag
ment that had been neatly rounded and par
tially drilled through the center-plainly the
beginning of a bead for a necklace.
Back in San Francisco I took a walk one
morning beneath the bay with Donald Hughes,
an engineering inspector connected with
BART-the Bay Area Rapid Transit District.
Don had invited me to inspect the world's
longest underwater transit tube, being built
616
across 3.6 miles of bay floor between San
Francisco and the East Bay city of Oakland
(pages 622-3). Don's company, the engineer
ing consultant firm of Parsons Brinckerhoff
Tudor-Bechtel, was the project supervisor.
By 1972 bay area commuters will hurtle
through the great twin-bore tube in electric
trains at speeds as high as 80 miles an hour,
cutting rush-hour travel time between San
Francisco and Oakland from the present
average of 40 minutes to 9. By that year BART
also plans to link more than a score of bay
area cities with 75 miles of high-speed track,